


Losing Control

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [48]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 06:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14326656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: (9x14 minor spoilers)“This is how I found out.” Molly saysBecause normal people don't just stab themselves to see if they have magic powers.





	Losing Control

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for self harm, wouldnt describe as explicit but also not... ehhhh, it would _bother_ me in a way, personally, if I hadn't written this. just forewarnin.

Caleb’s been trying to sleep for what’s coming close to an hour when he remembers, quite suddenly, that they forgot to take back the dagger that Molly iced. He  _ could _ just leave it until the morning, or he  _ could _ go and see if Molly and Fjord have left their door unlocked, in and out, retrieve Nott’s dagger. He’s getting restless, trying to stay still in bed, anyway, it’s just a little wander and he won’t be going into danger.   
He creeps up, careful to avoid the floorboard that creaks, he’s learnt this room well, and slips out of the door.

Fjord and Molly’s door is unlocked, really, that should have been the first concern for Caleb.  _ Horace _ is in their room, after all, and he’s illegal cargo. Something to protect. They had promised Dolan.   
He eases in, Nott’s stealthy influence thrumming in his mind like it’s music, beat after beat, he doesn’t know the room a as well as his own but he tests each step lightly before he takes it, makes sure to avoid anything that creaks.   
He reaches the blood spatter from where Molly had drawn the dagger across his arm and pauses, looks around, and notices. He doesn’t see the dagger, firstly, and secondly, he doesn’t see Molly. His quilt is thrown to the side of his very empty bed, he’s not lying on Fjord the way Caleb has seen occasionally, and the most sheltered spot of the floor currently houses Horace, who is curled up into a ball, Molly’s coat thrown over him for warmth.   
Caleb creeps back out of the room. Chances are, then, wherever he finds Molly in the middle of the night, he will also find Nott’s dagger.

  
He checks the washroom first, seems like Molly’s haunt after a stressful night, and there’s evidence he has been here- there’s a bloody rag  tossed to the side that Caleb recognises as his, but there’s no Molly. It’s empty, eerily quiet, and he sighs gently and leaves again, he’ll have to  _ talk _ to find out what he wants, he heads out to see Wessik.   
The bartender is having a slow night, leaning back with a glass that Caleb suspects is some kind of fruit juice, Wessik doesn’t seem the sort to drink on the job.   
“Ah, excuse me.” Caleb leans on the bar, he’s got his flask in hand, “Vodka, perhaps, and some information?”   
Wessik takes the flask from his hands with a squint, “How much?”   
Caleb slides five silver across the table.   
“As much as that will purchase.” It’s change from his last minor purchase, he doesn’t plan to drink the vodka anyways, he heavily prefers spirits with  _ taste _ . Wessik nods and takes the flask aside to measure out a few shots of vodka into it.   
“Information, y’mentioned? Hope it’s nothin’ shady, I’m trying  _ really hard _ t’ keep my nose clean ‘round here.”   
“Oh, no.” Caleb assures, “Just to ask if you have seen Mollymauk?”   
“Which one’s that?” Wessik screws the cap on his flask and slides it to him across the bar.   
“Purple. Horns. Loud.” Caleb waves a hand, inclines his head in thanks when he takes the flask. Wessik points to the door.   
“Went out about half an hour ago.” and shrugs, “Didn’t look good, but what can I do?”   
“Thank you.” Caleb stands and inclines his head again, makes for the door.   
“Careful out there!” Wessik manages before Caleb is out of the door and thinking about where Molly possibly could have gone.

He summons Frumpkin from his room, fusses and strokes him when he mewls in protest of being dragged from his sleep. He sends Frumpkin in one direction, through the streets, and heads around the back himself, good to keep a wide eye out, even though he has a  _ feeling _ he knows where Molly’s hidden himself away.   
Frumpkin flits through the streets and Caleb travels with him for a minute, dragging his fingers to the brick of the tavern as he walks blind, and then blinks out of it when his fingers hit the door, pressing the last instruction to return to the tavern into Frumpkin’s mind before he goes too far.   
He creaks the door open and casts, one handed, as he does, a single globule of light slips from his fingers to the cellar, illuminating it.   
And there’s Molly.   
Sitting against a wall and staring at nothing, barefoot, his hair is loose and bedraggled and the jewels from his horns are far fewer, as though he was ready for bed. He winces against the sudden light but continues his routine movement, dragging the tip of the dagger up and down the scarred skin of his forearm, lightly. He’s not pressing hard enough to draw blood, but there’s droplets on the floor and rolling from two straight, almost parallel lines just before the inside of his elbow.   
Caleb moves in and closes the door.   
“Hey.” Molly greets in a murmur, doesn’t look over, back and forth. Caleb sees him still, suddenly, his grip tightens on the hilt of the dagger and the edge presses down, hard enough to depress his skin, not enough to cut, he trembles.   
Caleb crosses quickly and slips a hand under the one with the dagger, pries it away from his arm just a little.   
“This is how I found out.” Molly says, absently, and Nott’s question from earlier pops into Caleb’s mind. “It’s control. It was something I had control over. Something that I could… something that I could control. It didn’t start flaring up with magic for a few weeks, it was just. Just before I met Yasha.”   
Caleb takes the dagger from his hands and pulls a clean roll of bandages from his own pocket, sets about wrapping them loosely around Molly’s arm.   
“It started with control.” Molly’s voice breaks a little, “Sadness, really. I was lost. I didn’t know what I was. I changed myself in ways I could control, but the tattoos weren’t enough, I needed more. It was all I thought I could do.”   
Caleb ties off the bandages, leaves his hand over Molly’s forearm, he hopes a comforting warmth.   
“It only, I only found out when it changed from, control, to power. I wanted  _ power _ , and then…” he makes a  _ fwoosh _ sound, throws out his free hand, Caleb sighs to him.   
“Yes, I had suspected that with your affection for changing your physical self, you may have slipped into a pattern like that. Control is… something precious, and it is easy to develop a fake sense of it.”   
“It helped.” Molly says, almost whines, “Until it didn’t.”   
“Until the control changed.” Caleb agrees and leans in to lie his head on Molly’s shoulder, Molly tucks the free arm around Caleb’s waist and sighs a little.   
“I try, sometimes, to get back just a little bit of that control. I’ve had so little of it lately.”   
Caleb grimaces and tugs at the sleeve of the arm set to Molly’s, tugs it up just a little, faint pale lines on already pale skin, a littering of them.   
“I understand.” He tells Molly, quietly, he hears the quick intake of breath, Molly slips his hand to lace his fingers between Caleb’s.   
“This is okay?” Caleb asks, carefully, and Molly gives an exhale that resembles a laugh,   
“You’re cleverer than to have to ask.” and turns to press a kiss to Caleb’s forehead where he lies on his shoulder. Caleb sighs again, this time it’s not of concern or exasperation or the negative, but of contentment,   
“Ah, I love you, Mollymauk.    
“Who doesn’t?” Molly jokes, smiling, presses his cheek to Caleb’s head, “Love you too, darling.”   
“When you need, if you feel you are losing control, in the future, you can, should, come to me.” Caleb sits up from Molly’s shoulder and drags his arm from around his waist to creep up to the back of his head.   
“I am sure we can find some form of control to give to you.” There’s a wicked smirk and then those lips are against Molly’s and at first, it’s a rough, hard kiss, but it takes only seconds for Caleb to fall back to his promise and let Molly take control instead, when they pull apart, panting, Caleb has been manhandled into Molly’s lap, one knee to either side of his hips.   
“Oh, this is  _ much  _ better.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know mollys hesitation when Nott asked how he figured it out was most likely just taliesin going _fuck i didnt plan for this question_ but this was the first thing to hit me so
> 
> Plus, when the mental state of this body or w/e fractured and I came around, I had the issue of i needed to see I was alive, and I needed something that i could control and... well... Molly is relatable, I imprint the other way too.  
> Difference is nobody helped me with my control issues, it just got worse, and i have a drinking problem to go with it IM A MESS THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT


End file.
